05/05/2011

Pink Calla Lilies

One of my son's favorite places to visit is a garden store in our little town of Norway, Michigan. He's been on a botany kick lately and is pretty sure that when we go to the Garden Place, he can successfully hit Mom up for a new plant or two. We went there on Friday, and I took a few flower pictures with my phone while we were plant shopping. One of the beauties that we saw was a pot of pink calla lilies.

I sketched in pencil first, simplifying a bit by leaving out one of the mostly-hidden lilies so that I would have an odd number of lilies in my picture. Now, I need to share a secret about drawing: YOU CAN DO IT. It's not about some special hand muscle that some people are born with and others are mysteriously born without. It's mostly a matter of careful observation. Can you draw an "s?" Of course you can. If you have the manual dexterity to draw the alphabet, you can draw simple shapes, right?

Granted, it gets easier the more you do it (and it's been far too many years since I've regularly worked in my sketchbook). But you just look--look at angles and shapes and how they relate to each other--and then you draw what you see. Avoid the temptation to name everything. It is sometimes simpler to draw the negative spaces (or the spaces in between the shapes) than it is to draw the shapes themselves. I'm sure I'll gab more about this later, but for now, get used to the idea that you CAN learn to draw.

I used a Copic 0.3 gray mutiliner to ink the pencil lines that I wanted to keep and erased the others. I used the gray instead of black because I didn't want it to look like a line drawing when I finished coloring it. Besides, gray lines are less intimidating than black lines. Guess what? It isn't perfect. But that's okay. I gave myself permission to NOT stress so much over perfection that I never accomplish anything. Try it--it's very free-ing!

Here I have started coloring the greenery, using the Copic markers shown above. You know something else fun about art? It doesn't have to look exactly like the picture when you finish. That means that if I see purple in my shadows, I can put purple in my shadows instead of just a darker shade of green. Often you see a detail and emphasize it more than it really is. That's okay. You are exercising artistic license. By the way, getting the value right is much more important than getting the color right. A blue apple, shaded nicely, still looks like an apple. A red apple shaded poorly or inconsistently may look less like an apple than the well-shaded blue one. Trust me on this unless you want to draw some blue apples!

You may have noticed that I have more room on my paper above than I did in the original sketch: I scanned and printed my original sketch on some X-Press It Blender Card. Then if I really mess up, I still have the original.

Here I've shaded one of the lilies using the markers shown above.

Here are the rest of the Copic markers that I have used so far.

It still isn't finished. I'm not sure what I want to do with the foreground. I don't think I want the pot in the picture, nor my son's hand. I'll figure something out. But so far, I'm happy with it. By the way, I'm guessing that I have almost seven hours in this so far. Yes, I'm that slow!

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Now for some Copic Certification Class updates:

On May 26, I will be teaching a Copic Standard Certification in the Minneapolis/Eden Prairie area. (Later this year, probably around Scrapfest, I am hoping to get back to the area for an Intermediate Class.)

On June 10, I will be teaching a Copic Intermediate Certification in the Boston/Cambridge area.

On June 23, I will be teaching a Copic Intermediate Certification in the Wichita, Kansas area.

As always you hit a homerun out of the ballpark again....Yes I've been watching my grandson's bb games. :) Seriously though I love the new blog. And your artwork is fabulous. Thanks for the tip about using gray instead of black (ML) I'll have to give it a try. Thanks again.

I am all for slow. Slow food, slow motion, slow art. It is all good. I just love this new blogging direction and the fact that you are taking us through your steps. I love the calla lilies and that coffee cup...outstanding!

ok this is throwing me off the chair. anyone who can draw like this can kiss stamps goodbye. Just put them in a box, slap my name on them and send me the bill. you are a true artist and I bow before you.

I've not seen Copics illustrated so beautifully. Oh my word Debbie, I can't even be pea green with envy . . . I feel totally blessed just looking at this gorgeous piece of art. I hope you'll post the finished Rembrandt!

I'm blown away Debbie....and I just found this "other" blog and am so glad! This is EXACTLY what I am searching for.
You were in Minn when I took my certification and I was thrilled to meet you then!
thanks for everything.